Job-counting method should be reality-based

The use of overly optimistic figures doesn't let the community know the true extent of the successes and failures in creating new jobs.

Having the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. use
numbers that reflect the cold, hard reality of job growth in our area
is sobering. Those numbers tell us that there has been little job
growth. This new method of counting jobs is a better way of reporting
the strength of the area economy. It will give the public and leaders a
better grasp of the challenges that must be faced.

The agency chiefly charged with job creation for the area has
removed from its Web site six years of annual reports that had claimed
glowing job growth. According to the erased reports, the area had
gained 2,221 jobs, including 1,005 jobs and 1,206 jobs indirectly
created. The reports claimed that 6,000 new jobs had been created
between 2003 and 2004.

The reports were based on announcements by companies of hirings that
were planned. As Jim Barnette, chairman of the Economic Development
Corp., noted, the reporting method was an attempt to show what the
impact of the job creation would be if the plans were to come true,
something that might not be fulfilled for years, or, often, not to the
extent that good-faith efforts had anticipated.

Changing how the EDC reports job growth is positive. The previous
method may have been optimistic, perhaps overly so. But if job- growth
numbers are to have any use, they must present a clear picture of where
the community stands in its competition for jobs occupied by real
people earning real paychecks that support households, and which are
spent in the local economy.

The reality is that job growth here has lagged behind other areas of
Texas. The Texas Workforce Commission says the number of jobs in Corpus
Christi has grown about 0.5 percent annually between 2005 and 2006.
That's nothing to crow about, but it is a fact that ought to galvanize
the community to focus on this vital issue.

Job growth is, or should be, the basic issue when major developments
are initiated, or when education initiatives that will make the local
workforce very attractive are ventured. Unfortunately, that is
sometimes not the case.

And that's why the blunt truth is needed. The numbers may serve to
give prospective businesses and industries an idea of the true,
unvarnished job picture in the Corpus Christi region. But a fact-based
report provides a great tool to the local public and leaders to keep
job growth, the prime issue of this region, squarely before the public
eye.